You
by JPLE
Summary: He knows what love is, only because he loves you. H/Hr Post-DH. One Shot.


When I'm supposed to be writing something else, another thought always pops into my head and distracts me. This is one such distraction that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

* * *

><p>The winter's cold, and the duvet is far too short for the bed, twisted around his ankles with his feet sticking out. Feeling like icicles he bends his knees carefully, attempting to avoid waking the figure breathing softly next to him, red hair spilling out over both of their pillows. He's been sharing a bed for almost fourteen years now, but he's rarely ever comfortable.<p>

He thinks maybe it's the winter (and the small duvet) which keeps him up at night, tossing and turning thoughts over in his head. There's definitely something about the season, which tends to make him uncomfortable.

And perhaps it's the constant thinking, done in this bed, staring at that wall, every night until spring. Every night until his body can fall peacefully, almost oblivious to the lie that bubbles beneath the surface of his life, running rampant in his mind.

He lies there, tossing thoughts around his head, flipping them over and turning them inside out. It rarely makes any difference, for he's found one cannot solve things simply in their mind when the physical attributes of that desire are left unsatisfied. The mind was more like a tool, possibly to build the courage for action, but for him serves for torture, because he can't change anything now. You've gone too far for that.

He thinks about you, you know? Thinks about how it is in your house, in your bed. He knows it's slightly creepy to think about you, warm and soft beneath a duvet that is probably the right size for your body. He hopes that maybe you aren't the type to steal it all to your side of the bed and leave him out in the cold, like he is now. Other times he supposes you're a horrid sleeper, because at least that way he can make you a little less perfect in his mind.

His mind; he builds you up and breaks you down like a sandcastle, carefully crafted before it's destroyed by the waves. He analyses you; undresses you, feels awful, redresses you and undresses you again. He yearns for you, feels cold without you and huddles close to her just to feel some kind of warmth that he feels when he's with you.

He wonders, sometimes; is it possible to love two people at once? Because occasionally he's sure he could. Hasn't he got enough love to give?

He loves her, the one in his bed; he's almost fifty percent sure. She's lovely and gracious, a little stubborn but fun and full of life. He's positive he couldn't have married her if she wasn't something that he wanted. But he's not sure if that something is _love._

Perhaps he'd be blissfully unaware of it, if it were not that he knows exactly what love feels like, at least, for him. He knows how love is, how it fills him up with liquid that feels like pure gold, warm and glorious. He knows how love is, painful and frustrating. He knows how love is, knows how it feels, because he's in love with _you._

(Although you pretend you're oblivious.)

Reality is cold and hard, but somewhere inside he knows the love for you is selfish, it can't be shared. For him, wondering if he could love you both at once is a clever justification for being unfaithful. For making a choice that he can't undo but can't be happy with.

He wonders if you can love two people (he wishes you could love two people).

He wonders if you love Ron. Wonders, but thinks, unfortunately, _of course you do_. And then he feels juvenile, but can't help be so bloody _bitter_ about it all.

After all, Ron broke your heart in sixth year. He chose someone else over you, clear and simple. You were both misunderstood and lonely then, and it should've ended there. He wants some recognition for taking care of you on that staircase, where you leant your head against his shoulder and cried about someone who didn't (and doesn't) deserve you.

Ron walked away from you, remember? He left you alone, shivering and relentlessly calling his name outside the tent in the forest on the hunt for the horcruxes. Didn't Harry stay with you? Wasn't he still there? Didn't you _choose_ him? And maybe it was for other reasons but you have no idea what you did to him on that day. Gave him some kind of rush he wasn't even aware of, because back then everything hung on the edge, and love and hate sometimes got thrown together in the confusing jumble of his emotions.

(And he wasn't fully aware that he loved you.)

Wasn't Harry the chosen one? Didn't he literally try and die for you, to rid the world of that horrible creature that used to taunt you in your dreams? The one whose name you couldn't even say before fifth year?

And after all of that, doesn't he deserve you?

(No, of course, because in those moments he forgets how imperfect he is and how you've done far more for him over the course of your lives.)

He wishes, sometimes, that he really was the chosen one. Chosen not by an unforgivable curse and a prophecy, but by you.

You've gone too far now, both of you. Because something has taken you in separate directions, down different paths, and you've crossed over multiple times but somehow, inexplicably, ended up all _wrong._ You are married and have children now, which he's sure you love as much as he does to his. You're married and in love.

He's married and out of it.

He can't change things now, he thinks. But he wishes, and hopes. And somewhere terrible inside him yearns for the days when you're both old and grey. Both imperfect with wrinkles and wiry hair. A time when perhaps he can pluck you off your pedestal and bring you down to him, to stand, unchained by the vows of marriage. The day when you've both survived your spouses, and there's no one else to lean on. The day in which people turn a blind eye to your cohabiting, because really, you've always been _best friends_ and who wouldn't when you're old and alone?

Maybe it's on that day, he thinks, he'll tell you. He'll tell you everything his mind has never had the courage spur on before that moment. Perhaps, that will be the day he'll find out that after all these years, you know you love him too.

But for now, he's happy to love you, even if you're unaware.

And maybe for now, that's just enough.


End file.
